About car puzzle #115: Zagato Porsche

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We expected jammed mailboxes full of answers after posting our car puzzle #115. We were wrong. Only three of you answered our well-known bi-weekly question: what is it? To cut straight to the point: it’s a Zagato Porsche, with the Porsche being the most obvious of the two. One of you wrote: “It really looks like a Porsche 550 Spyder”, and that’s right, although this particular one-off was in fact based on a 356 Speedster. The car was built for Frenchman Claude Storez, who was a fan of Zagato’s lightweight coachworks and thus took his Speedster to the Milanese carrozzeria with the idea to have it turned into a superveloce.

That happened and the car was finished in 1958 and immediately taken to the action scene. It did well in a GT race at Reims where it came second, but terror struck some months later when the car was crashed during the French Rallye des Routes du Nord, tragically killing Storez. The car disappeared – was probably scrapped – and forgotten. Until some years ago, when an American Porsche enthusiast asked Zagato to build an exact copy, which they did. Best answer came from Bernard Corrège, who wrote: “Don’t think a Frenchman doesn’t know this one! It’s the 1500 Porsche Zagato. Robert Buchet and Claude Storez entered it in the Rallye des Routes du Nord in 1959. Storez was killed at the Reims Gueux circuit at the bend of Thillois in this event on February 7. A curve at the Nogaro circuit is named after him.” Right so, well done monsieur!

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture courtsey Zagato)

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